 Well, we will be starting now on behalf of the Tufts Latin American Committee. We want to thank you for tuning in to this panel. It's titled Exploration, Exploitation, Natural Resources, Indigenous Rights, Oil Mining, and the Amazon. My name is Iman Alwaleilat and I am the president of the LAC for the 2022 spring semester. LAC is a student organization housed under the Institute for Global Leadership here at Tufts. This founding mission is to direct and scrutinize current events that pertain to Latin America and Latin American society. The three years since LAC's foundation, we have put together panels and discussions that have explored topics ranging from women's rights to the importance of the last GeneX votes in U.S. elections. As we move to a hybrid platform this year, we are committed to creating spaces like these that engage both the Tufts community and the general public to keep the conversation about what GeneX matters a lot. Additionally, we want to thank our panelists for joining us and our audience as well. Before we move on, we will do a short topic briefing with reports of mass destruction of natural spaces and the elimination of complete ecosystems from across the world emerging constantly. All eyes turn to the largest rainforest known as the lungs of the world, the Amazon. The Amazon rainforest is home to millions of animals and plant species in over 400 indigenous communities we have inhabited in the region for centuries. Unfortunately, there is something else that co-exist in the bio-diverse environment, precious minerals and materials. During the last century, international corporations have established massive projects to extract the materials from the land, more specifically oil. In the case of Ecuador, we see the prime example of the petro-state and the ways the economic benefit of oil extraction is impacting the public opinion and activists fighting for the purity of the Amazon, thus showing why the petro-state economy and the investments of international corporations come under heavy scrutiny due to the well-being of the indigenous people who live there. Therefore, by looking at Professor Larry Angle's documentary based on Dr. Isis that quotes, who speaks for nature, indigenous movements, public opinion and the petro-state in Ecuador, we will then be analyzing how the country's oil economy is impacting the current state of indigenous rights, with the goal of assessing whether the actions taken by Ecuadorian officials have been fruitful and what the future holds for both the native peoples of the region and the commercialization of the Amazonian land. And today we have Dr. Todd Isisat, who is a professor in the Department of Government at American University, where he teaches courses on democratization, comparative climate and environmental politics, and the ethno-political dimensions of climate change. As a democratization and environmental rights activist in Latin America, focusing on the impact that has upon indigenous communities, he is the author of the book Who Speaks for Nature Indigenous Movements, Public Opinion and the Petro-State in Ecuador, which examines the impact commercial developments in the Ecuadorian Amazon are having on the state meters and the average citizens, but more specifically the indigenous communities who inhabit this area. Dr. Isisat holds a bachelor's degree from University, a master's degree from the Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from the University of California, San Diego, together with a variety of awards from institutions like the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Science Foundation. Lastly, today's section of Q&A in our panel will be moderated by lax vice president, Carolina Andrade, who is a sophomore at TUF studying international relations and economics. Carolina, the floor is yours. Thank you, Manuel. We will begin by showing the short film, Who Speaks for Nature, by Dr. Isisat and Professor Larry Engel. We will then move on to the moderated portion of our panel, where I will ask a series of questions drafted by our research team to structure our conversation around the political, social, and cultural reactions to oil exploitation. We will conclude it with an opportunity for our audience on Zoom and in person to ask questions to the panelists. To do so, please address any questions you have to a specific panelist and submit your questions through the Q&A function throughout the panel. Welcome Professor Isisat and Emmanuel is going to do the last comment. Well, this is before we do our documentary, I want to welcome once again, Dr. Isisat and ask one question to set the stage for the background of the region and your research more specifically. Therefore, the question we want to ask you for the documentary is Dr. Isisat, what led you to carry out this research in the Ecuadorian Amazon? Hey, well, thank you, Emmanuel. And thank you, Carolina. And I think your your colleagues at Tufts for for inviting me. And I guess to say what what led me to do this research was a longstanding knowledge that there were issues in the Amazon region affecting not just indigenous communities there, but actually all of us, right? As it turns out that the indigenous communities, as we found in our book, are better stewards of the rainforest and they are of many natural environments. They have a different worldview that encompasses concern, care and attention for the natural part of their environment, encompassing that into their everyday conduct and habits and sort of participation in earthly affairs. And so they they have a different view. And we found this out by doing a public opinion survey with Sadatos, probably Ecuador's most renowned public opinion research organization, and we found through that survey that that is true, that the indigenous communities do have a stronger view of the importance of nature to their lives and a more direct tie to nature. And they have a and they also have a strong view of climate change and the need to try to mitigate climate change. So I wanted to see where we could find this in the Amazon region. And and I had heard about Sadatos and about the possibilities in Ecuador had contacts with human rights groups at the Universidad Católica also in Quito, and it just seemed like a great place to pursue this research. And I should just say also that they're that in addition to Larry Engel, Carlene West, a professor at SUNY Geneseo, also co-authored the book and also co-produced the video that you're about to see. So thank you very much. Perfect. Thank you, Dr. Eisenstadt. Perfect. We will now be moving on to watch the documentary. I will be sharing my screen for this. Sorry, we are having a little issue with the sound. We will take two or three minutes to check it and we will go back to the documentary. Excuse us. Are there any questions while we wait for the video? One more minute. We are sorting out the audio. Thank you. While we are fixing the audio is to take up just a few more minutes. We wanted to start maybe asking a few questions to Dr. Eisenstadt while we fix it. Would that work? Perfect. One question that we would like to ask, which we will then see more in detail in the video, is post-materialism theory. Would you be able to expand a little bit on the definition of post-materialism theory and what were your findings of this theory in your research? Yeah. The idea of post-materialism theory that was sort of conceived by Engelhardt, a political scientist in the 1980s and 90s, and it was really geared towards studying environmentalism in Europe. The idea was if you look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which some of you psych majors may know about, which is where there's an understanding that we provide for basic necessities first, right, like food and shelter. And then after that, we need to provide for sort of emotional well-being and stability and things like that. And that eventually we get to what are called postmodern values, which are where people and groups and countries that have solved the earlier parts of the hierarchy can look at how to better integrate different groups into society, how to address what they call post-material issues, which include environmental issues, importantly for us, as well as harmony among different groups, getting along with people with differences and similarities. So this was an idea that was applied in Europe. So we thought my co-author, Dr. West, and I thought that we could ask whether this applied in other settings as well, because the idea was that perhaps in some parts of the world, such as in the Amazon region, where there was a lot of poverty and difficulty meeting the most basic needs, we thought that counter to post-materialism, people might still also be concerned with the environment and with sort of addressing and, you know, accommodating differences and similarities among groups. So we looked at that and we found in the book that that was, in fact, true and that perhaps post-material values are not directly tied to meeting basic needs first, but may be related in part to people's individual political economies. That is how they make their living day to day. People who live off of the environment as much of the community of people who lives in the Amazon region do also feel very strong ties to the environment. And in fact, those ties were stronger to the environment than the sort of people in the urban areas in our survey, who, by most standards, had their basic needs all met. OK, so that that's the story of post-materialism and how we sought to test it in our in this discussion and in the book. Perfect, yeah, very interesting theory and its application that we see in this case. I think that we are able to work it now. So Carolina will be presenting the documentary now. Thank you very much, Dr. Einstein, for your explanation. No, thanks for the question. I mean, this is disgusting. This is an open pet of oil near the city of Lago Agrio. It was created in the 1970s and it was closed in 1984 by the Texaco Oil Company. I wouldn't want this in my backyard. I mean, I think there are arguments that this problems like this all over Ecuador in this northern part lead to ruining water supplies and ultimately to cancer clusters, which have been documented in this area. We're following up on a book manuscript where we interviewed people around Ecuador to interpret the findings of a survey conducted in 2014 with about 1700 people from all over Ecuador. On the survey, we asked people about the issues that they care about education, security, employment, income and the environment. And then at the end, we asked how much in relation to those issues do people care about the environment? And what we found is that in areas where the environment has already been damaged like it is here, they no longer care about the environment in relation to those other issues. Estas piscinas son construidas a raíz de lo que ingresa Texaco a Calamazonia ecuatoriana en el año de 1964, perfora el primer posto el 16 de febrero de 1967. Y como ese posto es un posto que les da positivo les produce más de dos mil barriles diarios de petróleo. Entonces para nosotros siempre decimos para beneficio de pocos y perjuicios de muchos. Y este petróleo de estas piscinas ellos tenían dos opciones para deshacerse cuando estas piscinas se llenaban, se saturaban y comenzaba a salir el petróleo por el cuello de ganso. Una de las opciones era quemar, incinerar, meterle fuego a quien estas piscinas. La otra era mandar un tanquero a que chupen todo este petróleo y lo riegue por las carreteras. Y aquí como llueve bastante todo ese petróleo es más liviano con la lluvia hacia los ríos. Now public health problems, the economy, migration, we feel that those are issues that they think about more rather than the environment. Y en la zona norte la actividad petrolera lo que importó fue población colona que de alguna manera estaba acostumbrado a un. The first two million months that could have been sponsored by many of us being resumed in one second. We have a small issue, but now that we were able to take a little bit, we also just maybe it will be good to move on to another question whilst we're able to again. The question goes as follows. Is younger generations of indigenous communities moved to cities and become less connected to their ancestral practices? How will this impact the conservation of rainforests in the Amazon region? OK, thanks. I think that it certainly will and has been influencing the politics of the Amazon region. I think that, you know, people who move to the cities become more connected to technology and other ways of life. It may be easy to, in part, glorify, you know, the light, the rural life and the and the life of being, you know, immersed in nature. On the other hand, some of it is a subsistence lifestyle, meaning that people don't have a lot of a lot of leftover, you know, resources in their personal day to day. So we don't want to, you know, on the one hand, we maybe don't want to glorify that part of it. I mean, it's hard living in in rural areas in the Amazon region in particular, where, you know, people need to there's difficulty growing crops sometimes and they have to turn over the soil periodically. On the other hand, all the elders and prior generations have the respect for nature that perhaps today's young people may be maybe abandoning or if not abandoning may not have in the same strength and to the same degree. I do I do want to say, though, that, you know, in the Amazon and around the world that we don't want to leave this up to individuals because I think there's a certain fallacy that we have that, you know, we do. We glorify people in certain in the indigenous communities and in the Amazon and climate activists in general. And really, it's coming to a point with climate change that, you know, individual effort really won't aggregate into a solution to the problem. What we need is strong governments and the international community. The United Nations needs to needs to come in and and and do something about this and national governments in places like Brazil and perhaps even more than in other places like Ecuador have been unwilling to to make strong movements towards preserving the Amazon. And in the first instance, it it is their land and their choice. But in the second instance, this affects all of us as well. And this should be, you know, it's sometimes called a patrimony of all human of all humanity. And and and perhaps we should try and think about it that way, too. I don't know how we could do that. I mean, I do know, you know, at one point that President Correa had tried to, as he said, you know, save Yasunee from petroleum by, you know, leaving the oil in the soil by asking the international community to contribute so that, you know, he would do that. And I'm not sure that the international community at that time did not literally buy into this. They didn't raise the money that he wanted. And it was very controversial for him to do this. On the other hand, it may be time for the international community to think of a way to help incentivize people to save those areas that remain by, you know, by making a contribution to some some sort of stewardship or a trusteeship for land so that we can keep this land and make it a common concern because it seems that we have in the, you know, in the northern hemisphere have argued that the southern hemisphere needs to save the Amazon, that the Latin Americans need to save the Amazon but perhaps if everyone put forth the will and demonstrated and put some resources into this, we may be able to do a better job of showing the seriousness of the entire world about this. That's amazing. I, before we move on to the documentary, now that I don't know, was able to come back in, I wanted to ask another question we had which ties a lot to what you have just discussed. The question goes as follows with the majority of your study being conducted during the currency. How can it contribute to the establishment of new environmental and indigenous rights policies for the new guillermo lasso governments? OK, thanks. Yeah, I think that that, you know, that's a good question. And I was looking before before the talk, I was trying to get up to speed on some of the developments lately. I mean, frankly, it seems that some of the human rights issues regarding extraction of minerals on properties claimed by indigenous groups in the Amazon region in particular, but also in other parts of of Ecuador. Those struggles have not really changed, it seems. I mean, it seems that the the struggles and frankly, they're a good part of them seem to be against the the the Chinese government and they seem to be continuing. In other words, the the problems that existed during the, you know, Korea and and and Moreno seem to to to continue through to lasso. And I guess I guess that there have been some court victories very recently, that is, last month, the high courts in Ecuador ruled that people in in communities, indigenous communities in particular, which are covered by consulta previa laws, laws regarding the requirement that communities approve of approve of development in on their lands, which will involve extractive industries or any sort of changes to their land. They get to have a a vote on this, a decisive vote. And whereas the the courts in Ecuador had not have held this previously, this ruling, which was really a statement by the International Labor Organization, ILO 169, which was gosh, now, I think it was in the late 1980s that they came up with the idea of prior consultation for communities that was upheld in Ecuador last month. So that that is a big change. But that issue also continues. That is, what are the rights of indigenous communities to the sovereignty over over their lands, as opposed to private property, which is heavily regulated and enshrined in the legal system? They have a different status. They have, you know, they have lands which pertain to them in a more usufruct or common common property way. And that that status has been reinforced now. So I think there may be progress towards recognizing the rights of these communities to to sort of track the future of how their land is used. And that's a very new. And I think hopeful sign under this new government that probably has little to do with the government, which seems to be embroiled in some some turmoil in terms of its ability to execute legislation. But nonetheless, the courts made this ruling. And so the government will will get to address it and deal with it. And hopefully they will they will just they will legislate or execute what the judicial branch has has decided. Thank you very much for the insight. Now, I believe you can move on once again to the documentary. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for your. Thank you for your. I've had this happen organizing webinars. So I I feel for you guys, it's hard. But let's yeah, let's stay tuned. Sorry. Sorry for the technical difficulties. I was with all this new context that you're giving, Professor Eisenstadt, how can you can you give like a brief introduction to like what we're going to see in the documentary? I'm sorry, we didn't ask before. Like, so yeah, can you introduce us once again? Sure. I mean, the the documentary, I think what it really addresses is forms of development that we found that were different in the northern part of the Amazon area, the southern part of the Amazon area and the sort of central, you know, the sort of eastern plains of Ecuador is what we're talking about the north, the center and the south. And they had different different development strategies by extractive companies, the government and indigenous communities. And in the south, there was a lot of conflict and it was over mostly over mining and it had to do again with with some, you know, Chinese mining concessions, which isn't to say that there haven't been tensions with U.S. and Canadian and, you know, Spanish oil and mineral concessions also, but that in the case that that we're referencing in the video, it is mostly against the Chinese peristatal company that is coming in, has been coming in and is unable to start operation still, I believe, in the area that we looked at. So that's the south, somewhat of a conflict, the north is is an area that has already been exploited, right? And where the big oil spill was that you saw and that apparently there's there were some continuing oil spills to happening. And so so we're trying, we tried to show that, in fact, people's interest in the environment actually diminishes after they feel that the environment has been has been mistreated after the oil spills. People in that area tended to value other issues more highly. In again, we're talking now about the north, which was the first area on the video and people valued security, employment, migration more than environment in the center part of the country of the Amazon region. We talked to people from an indigenous community that has done a lot of organizing that is mobilized and tried to defend its rights. The people of Sarayaku, who are, I think, known widely as having having reached something of a of a standoff with people from extractive companies who have wanted to go in and and extract resources from from that community. So they they've succeeded in stopping that from happening at least until now. And and so we establish the differences and how communities face extraction and sort of the the role of government in these three different areas. So I guess we started the north and I guess we're going to move on to the south and then to the center and talk about these differences. It seems like we will not be able to show the documentary using the technical issues or a variety of questions that we want. So so if you could, like, describe a little bit of the south. Sure, sure. OK. Yeah. So thank you very much. Yeah, yeah. OK. So indeed. So in the north, where you did see a lot, there was some oil spills and there's cancer clusters and there's there's been some difficulty and there's been lawsuits by by aggrieved people. And I don't know the final status of those. Maybe Carolina can speak to that. I don't know. But at any rate, the south has had displacement of people. There's mining copper mine that has been set up. And I mean, there's there's actually multiple mines being established. And one of them is is fully operative. And the one that is featured in the video, which you can watch online sometime, has not been able to to start extraction. So and and I guess part of that has been there have been expulsions of people from from their their homes and there and they organized widely and they made it a big national issue. During the time when we were filming this in about 2017 and in the year or two before that. And apparently it still has not those issues have not been resolved. And so, you know, people people were took refuge, you know, dozens of people from a couple of small communities have taken refuge in neighboring areas and have questioned and sort of protested. And so there's something of a of a standoff going on in the south. And there, you know, there, people still have something of a view that, you know, they can they can have a stronger position in protecting the environment. The environment has not has not been damaged. Tourism is also big in the in the southern part of the Ecuadorian Amazon. And then there is the the center part of the Amazon. And I think I have a I think I have a slide I can show that sort of raises this. If I could, can I share the screen? Yes, definitely. That would be amazing. All right, let me see if I can show you. I mean, at the very least, you guys see what I you see the map that I have. OK, I mean, this was one of the petroleum rounds. I mean, this is the. Negotiations over over rights to to extract petroleum. And I'm going to just put my cursor. This is just the easiest map that I had available. I have I have another oops. There's another map, but I think for simplicity's sake, we'll just go with this right now. And so the north is sort of in this this area. OK, that we're talking about the the south is in this in this area. And then we're talking about sort of the. The center area is here and I I wish I had a bigger map. Let me see if I have a map of all of Ecuador. I don't. I mean, I'm sure I do OK. Well, that's not the best. That's not the best. But anyway, it is a map, though. It is a map, though. That's really good. Like for conflict is the like the Amazon big site of Ecuador. So it's like the right side and borders. Yeah. So if we looked at the other, if we look at the big Ecuador wide, I mean, the closer one that I'm showing you is really this area. This is the central Andean corridor. OK, and this is where most of the indigenous Kichwa people live. This is about, I think, 60 or 70 percent of the indigenous population. And there's and the indigenous population of Ecuador is quite large, right? It's something on the order of 20 percent of the population. So it's and that's people who who in a census identify that way, right? And so that it's probably underreported. And I see that we have colleagues from from Sedatos on the call here and they might be able to give us more precise information. But the area that we're talking about is the Amazonian area. So that we have the Andes, we have the foothills of the Andes, which are a mix of sort of tropical and and more moderate temperatures. And then we have the the flat eastern part of the country, which we've divided for our purposes in the book and in the video into sort of three areas, which is sort of the north, the center and the south. OK, so and I would just say that the we sort of finish the video with the central part, which is the community of Sarayaku in this area, which is really a community that to us kind of symbolized how it is that indigenous communities try to, you know, ideally are able to. Continue strong relationship with the land that they've had traditionally. This community, Sarayaku, has the added benefit of having received a court settlement. They have a trust fund they've established that gives scholarships for young people and they've set up, you know, they have invested in computer technology and in airlines and such things as connecting their community to the broader world, but also while minding their relationship to to nature. So a localized identity, but also a global one. At least that that was what we perceived when we were there several years ago. I haven't seen anything to to change that view. It seems like they they've solved the problem of dealing with the international community and having a representation internationally and representing the rainforest and stewardship of the rainforest and being good advocates of that while at the same time benefiting materially from sort of technology and sort of the 21st century benefits that, you know, that that has given an educational opportunities and sort of improvements in in their day to day lifestyle. So so it seems like they found a way to have, you know, both the traditional and the, you know, sort of Western modern, if if that's possible and people raise questions about whether that is possible. People who, you know, move to move to the city of Pashto or to other areas nearby Sarayaku are sometimes accused of, you know, betraying their people, right? The purists don't don't want them to to give up the very traditional lifestyle. So there there's a tradeoff people make. There's philosophical issues they have to reckon with. And sometimes it even probably gets to be something of an ideological issue as it does in the national political scene sometimes. So I think I think these tensions are probably if they're expressed consciously, they're probably beneficial because Indigenous communities have these tensions and they get to address them sort of consciously and publicly. And that gives us all sort of an entree into these questions and an entry point into how to think about these things. On the other hand, it's probably stressful for them and maybe even more for younger people who grapple with, you know, which identities to to assume the sort of Western identity with the economic benefits or the traditional identity, which probably they argue has a stronger moral character and a stronger, you know, it has other benefits. So I'm not in a position to say which is better. Yeah, so going back to like the Sarayaku, we've seen them as an example of an Indigenous community that community that has also refrain from the corruption that mining also entails, right? Like in the north, a lot of Indigenous communities have this supposed representatives that have also engaged in corruption, but pretend that they represent representing the entire Indigenous community, which I also thought was very interesting that was also mentioned in the community. And in terms of corruption and also the rise of illegal mining, even of people that are affiliated to Indigenous communities, we have this question that is, Ecuador was the first country to include the rights of nature in its new constitution in 2008. What is the relevance of this? And do you think it has had an actual impact on the fight towards environmental rights? Or is it just a political facade for exploitation? That's another good question. Before I answer that, I just want to go back to Carolina's point about in the north, I agree with you that there has been some duplicity, for example, among the I mean, I not to pick necessarily on the Waorani group or on any particular group, but I can say that we interviewed the president and the vice president of the Waorani people together in a group interview. And one of them wanted to allow oil extraction. And the other one did not. And they argued with each other. I mean, so so they seem very divided. I mean, I don't know about the corruption necessarily. I do know that some people want to take the material benefits and the jobs and the, you know, the economic return that they can get. Whereas others really prefer a more traditional lifestyle. So I think I think you have a good point and that that was an issue, especially in the northern part of Ecuador, and that probably continues with regard to the rights of nature and the 2008 Constitution. It was a fascinating addition to that Constitution. And as you probably know, after Ecuador passed its Constitution, Bolivia had a similar addition to its Constitution. And there are there are a national and international and local laws and ordinances in places like Santa Monica, California and New Zealand, which also make references, at least to the rights of nature in in constitutionalism. And in fact, there's a there's a new U.N. Well, a few years old now, but a United Nations study group, a group of academics and analysts and practitioners who talk about this. And so so is it is it real? Or is it just an opportunity for exploitation? I mean, I think it could go either way. I don't think it's developed enough yet. I mean, I know there are some precedent cases even in Ecuador that have been used. I know it was used to defend some some sharks, endangered shark groups in the Galapagos, right? For example. So I think it I think it has been used creatively by environmentalists. I also know people have tried to use it. For other other means, right? I mean, I think even, you know, in order to extract resources, it has been argued that that was, you know, the rights of nature needed to be observed. I think it doesn't have full. It's not fully understood how this how this can be used. And I guess it it is currently up to the representative of the natural group that can't speak for themselves, such as species of animals or or or plants who determine whether it is used wisely in the benefit of, you know, environmental conservation or whether it's used for other purposes. I think I think that's a fascinating topic for study that I don't know the answer. Maybe you know the answer or you have an idea. What do you think? Yeah, I don't know. I I thought about it because well, as you know, the 2008 changing constitution in the Korean government where he actually, like, started drilling the Yasunin, which is where everyone is like one of the most wild, diverse places in the world. So it is to me, in my bias standpoint, it is a political side in the case of Korea. But now that it is a constitutional right, it can be used for and within and in the government, which is the opposition, I feel like it can be an opportunity for new environmental policies and a new fight for nature. And also, now that indigenous communities have had more representation in the political scene under a Yakuperuses candidacy for the presidency. And he was he then got third place. He was almost a runner up for president. So I feel like indigenous community, it's a very I feel it's a positive it was a positive outlook. But still, as you mentioned previously, prison last law has not expanded his legislative powers. And like, he's not very strong in that sense. Yeah, you mentioned a economic development and like how people want to like favor their economics rather than the environment. And that's a reality. I mean, a quarter is a country that is very kind of a clean stable. A lot of people are unemployed and it would actually rather have a stable lifestyle. And there has a lot of studies that have analyzed in economic development and a lot of actually, sorry, going back to my point, many governments justify oil exploitation as a reason for economic development, which will lead to further stability and like for democratic rule. But at the end of the day, there has been other studies that economic development does not necessarily equal democratic practices. So what is your intake on this? So the question would be, do you believe that oil production in here that we contains anti democratic politics in terms of rights of nature and of indigenous communities? Yeah, I mean, there's an old saying, you know, if you if you give someone a fish, then you've given them a meal for the day. But if you teach I'm paraphrasing, but if you teach them how to fish, then you've give them you give them a livelihood. And I think that's applicable here because I think a lot of the indigenous communities complain that they're given little jobs like when there's a when there's exploration for whether there's going to be oil extraction in a region, a bunch of people are hired to help with the seismic testing but or or they're hired to, you know, to work as laborers in the in the rigs, but they're not hired to design or to manage or to to do the high level jobs. Right. So I think part of the answer to the question about whether, you know, these communities benefit is what, you know, what level of of jobs and training are they receiving and how much of the benefit from the extraction, the royalties get to stay in the region rather than going to the central government where most of them go. If not, I think the vast majority of them go where they're used sometimes for good good uses and sometimes for sort of political, much more discretionary uses. So I think but I don't think that's unique to Ecuador. I think that the struggle between economic development and environmental protection is one of the biggest themes of, you know, 21st century conflict all around the world. And I think it's increasingly going to be so as climate change becomes more more accepted as a phenomenon by more of the world. And as we realize, unfortunately, that it, you know, it's here to stay. Even even if we fix it, which we could, it's, you know, we're not going to fix the entire problem. We're going to really diminish the problem, but we're not going to eliminate it. So I think, you know, I think this is a theme that echoes all around the world. And I think it plays out quite directly in the in the rainforest in Ecuador, as you've pointed out. I think, you know, there were efforts under Correa, for example, and we point this out in the video with the as you guys, the millennial and the sort of the construction of of safe housing, of good housing with electricity and sort of Wi-Fi in in some of the communities where extraction occurred as a as a sort of trade off as a way to improve people's standard of living, you know, and to compensate for some of the pollution and the and the waste that occurs on those sites. So, you know, those those solutions had their problems. And at the end of the day, I don't think it worked out entirely well. And I think that, you know, some of the political political uses of the resources to to bolster political supporters rather than to help the most needy has been a problem. And I think I think that's sort of a way to measure a government's will is to see if the benefit is going to those who need it the most or to those who are, you know, supportive of the current government or sometimes is the case in borderline areas where there's a strong electoral competition and a political party needs a few more supporters to get the majority. You know, sometimes heavy investments are made in those areas of social programs. So I think it's, you know, these are these are important problems around the world, and we could see them all playing out very, very clearly in this region of Ecuador. It's very interesting, interesting thing, but yeah, so at the end of the day, these are all like short terms like solutions to what is going on with the drilling. I mean, like the housing and like it's all like very short term things until they start feeling sick. And like, I also remember in the documentary, you mentioned a lot of increased cancer cases in indigenous communities in these areas. So at the end, it does the benefits that the government give indigenous communities where they are exploiting the area. So they like to play the conscience in the long term. Yeah, I mean, I think I think that trade off between short term benefits and long term benefits is huge. And I think that that's part of the problem also that much of the world is grappling with because, you know, solving environmental degradation and more specifically, you know, climate change is a long term issue. And politicians don't tend to have long term time horizons, right? They care about when is their next election, you know? And so they they tend to offer short term solutions and sometimes even sort of populism or clientelism. That is they give projects, but they don't give long term opportunities or hope or advancement. And so that's that's the challenge. I think that, you know, there was a government program, which was very interesting called social Bosque, which I guess has started up again, but which has had some weakness in that. The idea was that there was there was a fund from Europe. There were European donors gave millions of dollars to the Ecuadorian government to try and preserve forest areas and to pay people to not develop the land. And people did receive the payment to not develop the land that is to not cut down the forest, right? The forests absorb carbon dioxide and the mid oxygen and the rainforest is the most dense and effective, sort of they call them the the lungs of the earth, right? Because because of the ability of the rainforest to be to offer a natural solution to climate change, which is caused by emission of carbon dioxide. So photosynthesis absorbs carbon dioxide and emits oxygen in return. So that's that's great. I mean, the problem is that the money that was given for this supposed long term solution was to create a market for trading opportunities to save forests. In exchange, you know, if I'm a polluting company in Europe, I have regulatory structures that only allow me to pollute, you know, so much. If I pollute, you know, 10, 10 million tons more of carbon dioxide than what I'm allowed, I have to offset that. I can do that by buying the conservation of rainforest, say in Ecuador, I mean, in part, the preparation for an emissions trading system market was what the government hoped for, the environment ministry hoped for. In in setting up socio Bosque, the problem is that that market never came and that people were not paid enough to keep the trees because if you cut the trees, you can grow crops that you can sell for money and also subsist and feed your family. Whereas keeping the trees doesn't really produce products that help you fill the needs of your family. One and two to the the contractual amount of time that forests are to be preserved is not that clear. And I may make a deal with, you know, with one tribal leader and then there's another tribal leader who comes in and doesn't agree with that with that agreement with the government. And so the the contracting is a problem. And the third problem is that if I save this forest area that, you know, my tribal group has will cut down another another area for subsistence farming, which is not part of the deal with the government. In other words, there's what they call leakage, which is where I don't know if you've been to if you've been to to a carnival where you play the game and whack a mole where the where the mole pops up. You hit it with a with a hammer and then it just pops up somewhere else. Then you hit it with a hammer and it pops up in a third place. The idea of leakage is that if, you know, if the land is not if it's guaranteed for conservation as forest in one area, then the development and the farming will have to occur somewhere. So they'll just occur in another area. And so I guess what I'm getting at is that these are efforts for longer term solutions at the international level and at the national level. But they need to have the problems with them worked out better. So so I guess to answer your question more directly, the benefits of short term political programs or social programs and giving people stuff, even if it's not the best stuff and even if it doesn't help solve the environmental problem, that has known benefits. The benefits of long term programs such as social Bosque remain unproven. And so if you're a politician, you're probably going to choose the short term solution rather than the long term one, unfortunately. Yeah, that's very true. It's also it's the opportunistic side of the environment. Everyone sees an opportunity and it's always once again the intersection between economics and preservation. They are always fighting against each other and like economic and sustenance and in the theme of climate change and of activism and of protecting the environment. In your book, you argue that the stakeholders sense of vulnerability to environmental degradation matters more than their political or ideological predispositions or ethnic identities, thus providing greater opportunities for activists to unite across political and ethnic lines. So given your findings, is there any recommendation you would give environmental protection activists in order to increase their engagement and achieve their objectives? Like now knowing all this, like the connections with people, like beyond boundaries of like ethnicity and everything, they protect the environment. How can like activists use this and like create a have a better impact in the world? Yeah, that's a great question. That's a great question. I think that I think our conclusion from the book was that there's much more hope in areas that have yet to be harmed environmentally. Once once environmental harms happen, people are disoriented and they they lose their sense of urgency and they start just worrying about other things. Whereas where there has not yet been that level of where there hasn't been degradation, where the environment is still in good shape. That's where perhaps, you know, pure environmental activism can be can be fomented in areas where there's been environmental degradation. Perhaps the way to frame the issue is in other ways, such as public health, such as migration. In other words, activism is not it can be the same mobilization, but it has to be around issues relating to what people have already been through, which is which in the South and in the center in Ecuador, it seems there's still much more opportunity to mobilize, you know, to preserve the environment. The environment is still the central issue in the North. People's views seem to be fragmented by what they've been through socially, economically, environmentally and in the other parts that that doesn't seem to be the case. So I think, you know, maybe the broader lesson is that also, you know, as you say that it's time to mobilize across ethnic lines, across class lines, across national lines and that, you know, the evidence from Ecuador is that people can do that. And and, you know, they they have done that some. I think the biggest the biggest divide now, frankly, I think is over temporality. I think that generations, you know, your generation is probably probably angry and and I hope that that you are. And I guess I'm not sure my generation and maybe that would include your parent generation. I'm not sure that we've we've done justice for for younger people. And frankly, I think that's the big divide. But I think, you know, I think we all need to get over it. And frankly, we don't have we don't have that much time to try and solve this. So let's put all of these lesser issues behind us and focus on, you know, what we can do now. And I think at least among some of the Indigenous groups in in Ecuador, we saw some some uniting between the Andean groups, whose whose interests were typically very different. They had always organized inside governments. They had always had quotas of power. They've always played important roles as interest groups in the Amazon. The Indigenous communities were mostly disenfranchised. They never joined these larger political movements of the Andean Indigenous communities, which is, you know, the population center. But it turns out that both groups have problems over issues like water and that, in fact, you know, the Amazon communities with the Sarayaku emergence as leaders in the 1990s joined into the the broad coalition and the party building and the mobilization building so that the the Andean communities and the Amazon communities, which had very different linguistic backgrounds, histories, traditions were able to actually come together. So I think that that's a good lesson if we want to offer an optimistic way forward. So I think there's there's positive to be to be taken from that. And and maybe maybe for most of us or all of us. You really agree the Indigenous communities have been much more united in the past. And we see it even like five to ten years. I feel like they've also united a lot of politically, which I think is pretty interesting, as you said, regarding very huge differences in language barriers and also historic and like things that separate them. Like, but they have more than unites them, that does separate them, which is very interesting. And now to end with a more positive note and regarding what we can do is there a way we can effectively speak for nature? I think so. I mean, I think for better or worse, speaking for nature has become wound up in speaking for, you know, for humans, too. I mean, we can't separate our, you know, unfortunately, the days when nature was this kind of untameable force that was separate from humans, that is kind of over, right? So how do we speak for nature? I think, you know, I think what we have to do is is we have to reduce emissions and we have to really we and we can't and frankly, you know, focusing on recycling and, you know, not littering. I mean, those are no doubt good things to do. But frankly, in the 1970s in the US, there was an ad campaign which started the movement of trying to distract attention from corporate, you know, promotion of some pollution, polluting measures and instead focusing on what individuals can do. And I think individuals are part of the problem and we need to raise awareness and we need to contribute in our households and as examples to, you know, to children and to those coming after us. But I don't I don't think we can solve the problem at an individual level. I think that only governments and, you know, and companies, too, but companies, companies are neither good nor bad. They, you know, they just look for profits and, you know, there's nothing wrong with that, but nor is it virtuous and nor nor do I think that there's really corporate social responsibility. I think corporations are neutral. So what that means is that governments need to regulate them. And so, you know, we have as citizens of our respective countries and of the world, we need to push with Greta and with, you know, other others, other climate activists to to make sure that that we're able to make changes and make them at a at a rate that is adequate to the to the problem. I mean, we're not we're not addressing the scale of this the way we need to. So I still think we can and I think that ultimately we may if we have good leadership and if we have more, you know, if young people are key to this. So if more young people vote and raise enough stink about this, I think that we will have to start solving the problem. But I don't I don't think we've done enough, certainly. And the U.S. things have gotten better, right? We got I mean, Trump removed the U.S. from the international climate agreements. Biden brought us back. But still, we haven't been able to pass legislation that we needed to sort of step up the scope of how we address this problem. I think other parts of the world are also facing these kinds of issues. And I think, frankly, the world is becoming more divided between the mitigating countries, that is, the industrial countries that have created much of the emissions, pollution and the adapting countries. I think I would put Ecuador in that in that position. That is the countries that unfortunately received the harms and didn't didn't contribute as much to their creation, but also, you know, have to deal with it. So I think I think pressure from from countries like Ecuador and, you know, the rest of the adapting countries to force, you know, force the mitigating countries and the biggest mitigating countries are China, the U.S. and India to force those countries and to have those three countries among themselves come to some sort of agreement parallel to the United Nations or apart from the United Nations, but to make bilateral negotiating possible among these countries and to create an agreement as as as President Obama did with with with China and started to try to do with India. But then but then Trump came in. I think if that can be done, if we can execute that and if we can get support from other parts of the world and we can get a push from Ecuador with regard to the biodiversity that the country has and the rainforest, the indigenous communities and their example and everyone else who can come together, I think that message could be strong because Ecuador has dealt with a lot of a lot of these environmental problems in a in a mixed way, but with some success and that there are lessons to be taken from that more broadly. I think I think it's not going to be easy and we're all going to have to sacrifice, unfortunately. And it's hard coming out of covid when, in fact, emissions did go down worldwide, eight percent because of the economic slowdown. It's going to be hard to continue improving on the reduction of emissions in in economic good times. But we have to we have to try. I don't know if that answers your question. That's perfect. I feel like it also engages our our effort as individuals and like trying to do or in the like in the most minimal things try to help the environment as much as we can. But at the end of the day, it's out of our hands. At the end of the day, in a matter of of politicians and companies as you mentioned, and this would close our moderating moderator questions. And we have one question from our in person audience, if that is OK with you. So the question that we got from our in person audience is it's regarding what you said about clientelism like patronage and that surrounds oil extraction. And it says, in your opinion, is oil production and the rise of populist leaders like Rafael Correán or Chavez correlated considering the people's attitudes towards patronage and clientelism sustained through revenue of the petroleum industry? I guess I think it often does. I mean, I think that really I think the problem is if there's monopoly oil companies, peristatal oil companies, such as in particular in Venezuela and some of the other countries that have oil companies tied directly to the government, say Mexico. There's I think I think there's a stronger. Sometimes there's more corruption. Sometimes there's more clientelism, patronage. I think where there's political competition, there probably tends to be less of that. But still, you know, the royalties that country governments get make their make their financial planning easier. In other words, if I am a president of any oil bearing country and I can get discretionary funds for programs that I like from oil royalties rather than from raising taxes, I don't have to pay any political price. I get free money. At least that's I think how Correa viewed it. And I think I mean, he did some good things, right? He improved the infrastructure and the highway system around the country. He did some good things, but he also made sure that he kept the flow of cash coming in. And part of the way he did that was by making longer term deals and contracts, and in particular with with the Chinese government to send oil to China at a rate which now as oil prices are escalating so so quickly, turns out to have been a real, you know, bargain and and is really reducing the public revenue available in Ecuador, right, for public spending. So so sometimes populist leaders abuse the flow of of money. It's a it's politically cheap to them, right? It's easy for them to use royalties for political expediency. And so that's that's the problem. If they don't have to be accountable, then then why would they be? If you're if you're raising taxes, people are watching what you're doing and they care deeply about it and they're going to hold you accountable. If it's extra money that they didn't have to that, you know, that they're not paying out of their pocket, if it's coming from oil revenues, I believe it's like 15 percent of extraction is oil royalty, right? So if that's the story, then it's it's it's free money. And that's how these leaders treat it. And so, yes, I think they abuse it. I think that, you know, there needs to be better accountability systems. I I don't know how to establish those in countries that maybe don't have them. I mean, no national government is going to submit to any international authority on this, and there is no good international authority on this. So I don't I don't see how to improve that system unless people demand it. And and so maybe that's part of it is, you know, is having. But the problem is people don't want to go against their short term interest. No one ever does, right? And so we don't get these long term interest benefits because everyone likes a social program, you know, even if it's not that good, it's bringing something and even clientelism and elections. I mean, even if you get, you know, a little bit of a food or a t-shirt or notebooks for your kids, I mean, no one says no. I mean, who would? And that's that's an eternal problem. I think we're going to have to figure out how to have as we have central banks that are independent, presumably in some countries that have independence from from the day to day operations of government. It would seem that we need climate authorities who are able to set policy apart from which party is in office. I think that would be a partial solution. But the other partial solution, I think, as you said, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, it's not up to us as individuals, but it is in part up to us to pressure and to and to to have top down change, but to make sure that people at the top understand how serious we are about this. So I think that's part of it. And I also connected what you say about the short term index. Also, what happened in a quarantine that with a protest because of removal of the substance, the petroleum subsidy for the gas subsidy, and then there was mass protest because of this because also people are used to having this short term and like think that helps them throughout their daily life. So I think that's very interesting. People are accustomed to this short term benefit so they get from the oil revenues in these oil producing countries. So I think that's our last question in the Q&A section. I am. Thank you so much once again, Professor Eisenstadt. It's an honor to have you here. I hope to see you again soon and I'll give the floor to Immanuel to do the conclusion. Thank you so much. OK, thanks for your excellent questions and moderating. Perfect. Thank you so much. And again, Dr. Eisenstadt. Well, once again, we thank Dr. Eisenstadt for coming to our panel and engaging in such an education in fruitful discussion. Thank you for your interesting insights. We are certain that this event has great awareness of the effects of oil exploitation in the Amazonian communities and the environment of the glitter. And we understand that there are many other topics we could not get to. Therefore, if you would like to continue the conversation with one of our panelists, please refer to our Facebook page or Instagram page, LAC.tuff, for their social media contact information or to learn about our organization and other upcoming events. We also highly encourage you all to watch the documentary, Who Speaks for Nature? And if you're invited on YouTube, you can find it on Google any search instrument you desire to use. We highly recommend it. As we have discussed it, it explains all the information we discussed in this panel. And we really hope that you all have the opportunity to see it and really excuse us for the technical issues that we had. But thank you so much. And we highly recommend anyone interested in anything regarding politics, economics, environmental rights and indigenous groups to look at the. Yes, thanks for your interest. We'll also make sure to share in our social media so that everyone can have the opportunity to see it and learn a bit more as well. Perfect. Thank you so much, Dr. Eisenstein. Thanks for everything. And it's been a pleasure to talk to you all. And it's if all of if all of us took the interest that that you guys have taken, we would be in a much better position. So thank you. Well, thank you so much for joining us inside. We hope to have you sometimes soon. All right, be well. Thanks again. Have a good evening.